F1: Raikkonen blames team for Q1 exit

Kimi Raikkonen said poor communication from his Ferrari Formula 1 team was the reason behind his early exit from qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix.

Raikkonen suggested Ferrari failed to tell him about a change of plan after it realized the Finn would not have enough time to do three laps in the first part of qualifying. As a result, Raikkonen did a quick lap, a slower lap and was preparing to do another quick lap when the checkered flag came out.

He was only 18th fastest, continuing his disappointing form in qualifying this season, while team-mate Sebastian Vettel starts third.

"I got some information and obviously it was wrong," said Raikkonen. "I was doing the same thing I had been told when I was out. I never got the information that what was first the plan is now not possible and obviously we missed the lap completely.

"The information I had was three laps and they obviously noticed we went out too late at some point and we were not going to have three timed laps. I was doing the normal thing and I was told that the plan had changed suddenly.

"The point is they sent me out too late, we missed the one lap and obviously it cost us a lot. I did the plan as I was told. There was a mistake at some point. The plan changed but I was never told."

Raikkonen said the weekend had been going well until qualifying. Though he conceded starting in mid-pack will be tricky, he remained hopeful of a good result.

"Obviously it is not ideal, we should be much higher up," he said. "We should be fighting at the front, but we'll try to do our best.

"Yes there are long straights but also two tricky corners to be in the middle of the pack, so you have much bigger chances of something happening in first two corners.

"So you try to stay clear of all the s**t in the first lap and then I guess we should have speed but you never know what happens in the race. We'll do our best and see where we end up.

"More or less until this point, it has been a pretty good weekend. The car is handling well. I'm sure we can do a good job."

Originally on Autosport.com